In what seems to be the never-ending weed wars in Florida, an appellate court this week snuffed out the possibility of sick patients being able to smoke their cannabis treatment any time soon.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal came in a lawsuit initiated by Orlando trial attorney John Morgan and others who maintain that a Florida law barring patients from smoking their treatment runs afoul of the 2016 constitutional amendment.

The appeals court chided a Tallahassee judge who sided with patients, saying plaintiffs likely won’t win on the merits of the case and refused to allow smokable medical marijuana while the legal fight continues.

Leon County Circuit Judge Karen Gievers in May agreed with Morgan, who largely bankrolled the constitutional amendment, and plaintiffs in the case. The state appealed, touching off legal maneuvering that led to the appellate panel Tuesday issuing a five-page decision that effectively blocked Gievers’ ruling while the case continues.

“I respect the 1st DCA immensely, but no matter what, this goes to the Supreme Court, so why not now,” Morgan, who has repeatedly called on Gov. Rick Scott to drop the state’s appeal, said in an email Tuesday. “It is just a waste of time and taxpayer money. Cathy Jordan may die as this snails its way through the system. All of this proves why people don’t trust politicians. They know what they voted for.”

Cathy Jordan, one of the plaintiffs in the case, credits a daily regimen of smoking marijuana with keeping her alive decades after doctors predicted she would die from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Jordan, who grows her own pot, testified that smoking marijuana treats a variety of life-threatening side effects of the disease and that other forms of ingestion don’t have the same positive impact.

Gievers agreed with lawyers representing Jordan and the other plaintiffs. They contended that it was understood that the constitutional amendment allowed smoking, though the measure did not expressly authorize it.

State health officials, who answer to Scott, immediately appealed Gievers’ May 25 ruling, automatically putting her decision on hold. On June 5, Gievers lifted the stay, saying Jordan and Diana Dodson, a plaintiff who has neuralgia associated with HIV, would suffer without having access to smokable marijuana.

But the appeals court Tuesday quashed Gievers’ decision to lift the stay and directly contradicted the circuit judge. Appellate judges Joseph Lewis, Lori Rowe and M. Kemmerly Thomas found that the plaintiffs “failed to demonstrate that they will suffer irreparable harm if the automatic stay is reinstated.”

Noting that a trial court may vacate an automatic stay only “under the most compelling circumstances,” the judges also scolded Gievers, saying “it was an abuse of discretion for the circuit court” to lift the stay.

Even more, the panel signaled bleak prospects for Morgan and the plaintiffs, at least as far as the appellate court – which also rejected a request to rush the case to the Florida Supreme Court – is concerned.

“Here, after the panel’s preliminary review of the wording of the medical marijuana amendment and the statute prohibiting the use of medical marijuana in a smokable form, we conclude that appellees (the plaintiffs) have not sufficiently demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits as required to justify vacating the automatic stay,” the judges wrote.